Malcolm Rifkind resigns as ISC chairman and will step down as MP
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Version 0 of 1. Sir Malcolm Rifkind has announced that he will stand down as Conservative MP for the Tory safe seat of Kensington after making “errors of judgment” in a cash-for-access scandal. The former foreign secretary insisted that he had done nothing wrong after the Daily Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches alleged that he and Jack Straw, the former Labour foreign secretary, had offered to use their positions as politicians on behalf of a fictitious Chinese company in return for thousands of pounds. Rifkind announced that he would not contest the general election and would also stand down as chairman of parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) with immediate effect, to ensure its work would not be overshadowed by the controversy. He will remain as a member of the committee, which is due to publish a report into privacy and security arising from the leaks by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden before the dissolution of parliament ahead of the general election in May. Speaking after a meeting of the committee in Westminster, Rifkind said: “No, I don’t think I did anything wrong. I may have made errors of judgment but then we all make errors of judgment. We are all human beings in that sense.” Rifkind had insisted on Monday that he would fight the allegations made in the Channel 4 documentary. He joined Straw in referring himself to the parliamentary standards commissioner, but insisted in a defiant interview on BBC 2’s Daily Politics: “My conscience is entirely clear.” But the former foreign secretary, who had the Tory whip suspended on Monday by Michael Gove pending an internal disciplinary investigation, had a change of heart overnight. Rifkind insisted that he had made his own decision but it was clear by Monday night that he enjoyed dwindling support in Downing Street, which feared that the Tory general election campaign could have been harmed by the allegations against such a senior figure. Rifkind insisted that he had not come under any pressure from his Kensington constituency to abandon his plans to stand for parliament for a final time, 41 years after he was first elected as MP for Edinburgh Pentlands in February 1974. He said he had made the decision because the disciplinary investigation would have taken around three weeks to complete its work, creating uncertainty for the association over whether he could be its general election candidate. Related: Where to now after the Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw ‘cash for access’ scandal? | Letters Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary standards commissioner, released a statement saying that she would not be able to complete a report into Straw and Rifkind until after the general election. She has still not decided whether to conduct an enquiry. Rifkind said: “I took that decision because there is very major uncertainty because I no longer have the Conservative whip. That might be reversed in three weeks’ time when the party committee has concluded its work, but we do not know how that work will be completed. I do not want to leave my colleagues in the Conservative association suddenly finding with an election round the corner that they have to find a new candidate.” Asked whether Downing Street had sacked him as the ISC chair, Rifkind said: “No, DowningStreet does not have that power. The ISC acts under an act of parliament. I reflected on the situation last night and could see the issue is one of which there is a rising public interest. And I did not want the work of the committee to be distracted. I informed the committee at the very beginning of the discussions that have been going on all morning. It met at 10am and I read a statement about the issues in the press and then went on to the main business.” The ISC said it had decided not to appoint a replacement chair until after the general election as it had already completed its last inquiry of the session – into privacy and security following the revelations by US whistleblower Edward Snowden of mass surveillance. “At the meeting, the committee completed its major inquiry into privacy and security, and its report will now be sent to the prime minister,” a spokesman said. “Given that that concludes the substantive work of the committee in this parliament, and that the committee has no further formal meetings scheduled before the prorogation of parliament, the committee decided that there was therefore no need for it to elect a new chairman for the remaining few weeks. All further matters which arise during the life of this parliament will be dealt with by the committee as a whole.” Straw suspended himself from the parliamentary Labour party on Sunday night and both men referred themselves to the parliamentary standards commissioner. Labour will seek to intensify the pressure on David Cameron by staging a Commons vote on Wednesday to ban MPs from holding paid directorships and consultancies. The opposition leader, Ed Miliband, who wrote to the prime minister on Monday calling for the ban, is consulting on whether to limit the amount of money MPs can earn from outside parliament to 10% or 15% of their parliamentary salary of £67,060. Cameron said it would be wrong to impose further restrictions on MPs. A Labour source said of the debate, which will be opened by the shadow Commons leader, Angela Eagle: “We need to ratchet up the pressure on David Cameron over this. Ed Miliband has put forward a coherent and serious plan to clamp down on second jobs held by MPs. Why won’t David Cameron support this?” A Conservative spokesman said: “Sir Malcolm has had a long career of distinguished service both to the Conservative party and the country. We respect and support his decision to stand down.” |